NCC: Reverend George and Betty St. Angelo papers

George St. Angelo was born in 1921 in Huntingburg, Indiana. He graduated from North Central College in 1943 and was student body president. After graduation he enlisted in the Army, becoming a German translator for the Signal Intelligence Corps. As an SIC officer he helped interrogate Nazi guards at Dachau, a German concentration camp, and assisted the camp’s survivors. This experience reinforced his ideas about social justice and shaped the rest of his life. After his discharge, he enrolled in the Evangelical Theological Seminary, housed across the street from his alma mater.

Betty Jane Gibson St. Angelo was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1923. She graduated from North Central College in 1948. During her time at North Central she met George, and the two of them married not long after his graduation from the Evangelical Theological Seminary in 1949. From 1949 to 1955 the couple lived in northern Indiana, where George ministered at a succession of rural churches before landing at a congregation in Indianapolis. During this time they had two daughters, Becky and Tina. In 1955, George was hired as the first chaplain at North Central College. During his tenure at the college, George inspired fierce devotion among the students who got to know him because of his commitment to civil rights, social justice, and international education. George was instrumental in arranging for Martin Luther King, Jr.’s visit to campus in 1960. One of the high points of his career at North Central was organizing a group of students to participate in the march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama in 1965, a high water mark of the civil rights movement in the United States. Betty was also involved in social justice issues during the 1960s. She was a committee member and organizer for Naperville’s Fair Housing Council and Human Relations Council. In her work with Church Women United she arranged for speakers on topics such as ecumenism, civil rights, and fair housing to visit gatherings of women in suburban Chicago. Amid this activity, the St. Angelos’ youngest child Bill was born. In 1966, George retired from North Central College. He combined his love of peacemaking and travel by founding Seminars International, a faith based educational travel service, in 1968. Betty started working in Naperville Community Unit School District 203 in 1968, bringing her enthusiasm and organizational skills to Naperville Central High School from 1968 to 1977, and then to Naperville North High School from 1977 until her retirement in 1997. As a result of his work with Seminars International, George played a pivotal role in establishing the Nazareth Academic Institute in Israel in 2002, which brought together Jewish, Muslim, and Christian faculty to support a unique curriculum in peace studies. George and Betty continued their unwavering support of North Central College and its students until their passing: George in 2012 and Betty in 2015.